Diamonds and Dreams (16 page)

“Listen
to me before you get any angrier.
 
Tony
has a long history of pretending to be a perfect gentleman, tricking women into
falling in love with him by being deceitfully kind, then ending an affair
abruptly.
 
He often takes pleasure in the
pain he causes for the jilted woman.
 
I
heard him boast about how many hearts he broke already.
 
My only motive for saying those things about
you was to try to discourage Tony from wanting to make you his next
victim.
 
I don’t really think you’re
cold, Lindsay.
 
You’re the warmest person
I ever met.”

She
knew she gambled as she tried to decide whether she could trust him, but she
finally made up her mind to believe him.
 
“I’m sorry I sounded bitter when I called,” she apologized, “but I wish
you’d learn that I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.
 
If you’d ever accept this fact, then maybe we
wouldn’t have so many misunderstandings.”

Suddenly
she remembered her tires that were slashed the night of the Derek Eden concert,
and she wanted to ask Brant if he knew anything about that, but she
hesitated.
 
They started to get along
better; there was no use in messing things up just when they began to fit
together again.

“If
I explained myself well enough, may I go back to sleep now?” Brant asked,
yawning.

“Sure.
 
I’m sorry I bothered you.
 
Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,
Lindsay.
 
I’ll see you around.”

Opening
her mailbox the next morning, Lindsay pulled out a thick stack of mail and was
pleased to find no junk mail or bills, only a postcard from her cousin.
 
As she walked back inside the house, she
looked forward to a relaxing afternoon reading before she was due to start her
shift at the station.
 
She poured a tall
glass of iced tea.
 
What was that on her
floor?
 
She knelt to look.
 
It was a strange-looking envelope that
appeared to have been crudely made from a brown grocery bag.

Her
curiosity got the better of her as she slid a pearl-handled letter opener
across the back of the taped envelope.
 
Reaching inside, she tugged on the heavy sheet of paper and began
unfolding it.
 
When she smoothed out the
wrinkles, she could recognize the jagged pieces of paper as a collage made of
pictures featuring Constance in the senior yearbook.
 
There was her sister in a varsity
cheerleader’s uniform, one of her in honor society, and another depicting her
in a drama club production.
 
There were
several candid shots of Constance blended into the collage, and as Lindsay
studied the mixture of photos, she suddenly felt cold chills spreading down her
back.
 
In the right hand corner was a small
picture of her that appeared in the newspaper about a month ago when she helped
to organize a benefit dance to aid victims of a tornado that left several local
families homeless.

Who
would be so cruel as to send something like this?
 
Why did someone apparently want to stir up
all these sad mementoes of her sister and force Lindsay to relive the pain
again?
 
She had been too young to be in
the school activities when Constance was in high school, so what was the connection?
 
It must be from someone that had access to
the old yearbooks, and quite possibly it could be one of the people who
attended the class reunion, but which one and why?

Lindsay
felt uneasy for the rest of the day as she tried to keep busy catching up on
the household chores.
 
While she showered
and prepared to go to work, the purpose of the collage continued to elude
her.
 
Was there some hidden message she
had been unable to decipher?
 
Did the
sender simply want to reopen the scars of her sister’s death?
 
Could the pictures contain a veiled threat to
her?
 
So many questions tormented her,
but she decided not to say anything about the incident to anyone.
 
If she ignored the collage, as well as the
other peculiar happenings which took place recently, the culprit might become
bored if she showed no reaction.
 
At
least, she prayed that her tormenter would tire of this bizarre game soon and
quit harassing her.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

“Coke here!
 
Cotton candy!”

“Step
right up, folks.
 
Ride the Ferris wheel.”

“Try
your luck.
 
Four balls for two dollars.”

“Win
a stuffed animal for your girl.
 
Over
here!”

Everything
about the Ohio State Fair—the loud merry-go-round music, the appetizing smells
of popcorn, candied apples, roasted peanuts, the laughter, the sight of people
having fun—put Lindsay in a festive mood as she strolled down the
bright-colored midway.
 
She glanced at
her watch and saw that she arrived at the dusty fairgrounds an hour before she
was to broadcast her show live from the center pavilion.
 
Just because she had to work this evening,
why shouldn’t she have a little fun first and do a little exploring?

In
one building she came upon the cooking and baking projects which earned blue
ribbons for their creators.
 
The tangy
smell of hot apple pie made her stomach growl, so she stopped at a booth outside
and bought a fat cone of fuzzy cotton candy that was so sticky she had to wipe
it off her mouth.
 
Returning to the
midway, she felt a childish thrill spread through her when she bought a ticket
to ride the Ferris wheel, then found
herself
high on
the giant revolving wheel that towered above the treetops.

“Get
the scare of your life in the House of Horror!” a male voice shouted, and
Lindsay, who never missed the late night chiller movies, couldn’t resist
entering the spook house that displayed giant-sized pictures of horned monsters
on the outside of the building.

Inside,
she stepped on the lopsided floor that tilted first one way, then the other
while her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness.
 
Suddenly a hairy beast reached out to grab her arm and she thought she
heard it mutter an animal-like noise close to her ear.
 
There didn’t seem to be any other patrons
coming through behind her.
 
At least she
didn’t hear footsteps or the usual screams and shouts.
 
Jerking her arm free, she cautiously stepped
toward the light shining ahead of her, only to discover when she got there,
that it was a trick mirror.
 
She was
excited and scared at the same time when she found herself trapped with no
obvious way to escape.
 
The eerie silence
began to grate on her nerves, however, and soon she had an uneasy feeling that
something wasn’t quite right.

Turning
a corner, she saw a mummy open a squeaky coffin lid before she made her way
down another dark hall.
 
It was there
that she heard a muffled voice whisper, “You’re the next one to die.”

Her
heart pounded now as she looked around and saw no one.
 
There weren’t even any of the ghastly painted
settings or people wearing monster costumes nearby.
 
Where did the threatening voice come
from?
 
Was the message meant for her personally
or was it something that everyone going through the House of Horror heard?
 
It was difficult to believe that the
anonymous voice spoke the same message to others.
 
Too many children would be frightened and too
many adults as upset as she was.
 
She
knew that she should investigate the matter further, but she felt too
uncomfortable about the situation to buy another ticket and make another trip
through the spook house.
 
Besides, what
if she had an enemy that followed her inside and lurked in the shadows?

Deciding
to get back outside as quickly as she could, Lindsay was relieved to hear some
boys’ voices close behind her and she breathed easier when she heard one of
them say, “We’re at the end now.”

She
was about to ask them if they heard the voice telling them that they were about
to die, or even if they did it themselves as a prank, but they disappeared
before she could approach them.
 
Feeling
her way along the crooked walls, she finally saw an open door and the bright
lights of the midway a short distance ahead.
 
When she stood among the crowd and squinted in the warm dusk again, it
was easy to convince
herself
that her imagination must
have played tricks on her when she was in the spook house.

I must
be getting old
, she thought,
to
have actually become scared at the fair
.
 
She laughed aloud, as if to reassure herself that everything was fine,
and started toward the pavilion where she’d broadcast her show.

“Tonight
I’m live at the great Ohio State Fair,” she began, her microphone clipped on
her lapel.
 
“I want to invite all of you
to come out and say ‘hello’ while you have a great time enjoying the fun
activities you’ll find here.”

Several
people immediately accepted her invitation.
 
Throngs of fair-goers passed by the pavilion and Lindsay caught a glimpse
of Nikki Chandler walking by with her husband and two young boys who appeared
to grow weary.
 
Lindsay didn’t have an
opportunity to speak to Nikki since an elderly lady confided that she didn’t
care for any form of rock music, but she did often tune in Lindsay’s program
when she had difficulty falling asleep.

The
evening progressed and eventually the crowd thinned out as people started
home.
 
Lindsay spotted Nikki again,
although this time she was alone and walking briskly as if she needed to leave
fast.
 
“Hello, Nikki,” Lindsay called as
she came closer.

Nikki
strolled by, flashing no hint of recognition and barely glancing at her.
 
Lindsay’s feelings felt hurt.
 
There was no way that Nikki couldn’t have
been aware of her presence, especially since a large red and white sign
proclaimed that the radio hosts of WBKB broadcasted from this spot tonight.

Why
did Nikki try to avoid her?
 
Lindsay
didn’t understand why she’d been so nice at the reunion, and now refused to
speak.
 
She stared pensively at the retreating
figure of Nikki until she could no longer see her.
 
Deciding to ignore the apparently deliberate
affront, Lindsay shook her head and began the long walk toward the parking
area.

“Lindsay!
 
Wait a minute,” someone called to her from
the noisy midway.
 
Supposing that it
would be one of her listeners, she turned to greet the person.

Surprised,
she saw Mike MacDonald running toward her.
 
“Hello.
 
I don’t think we’ve been
properly introduced yet, but you’re Mike MacDonald, aren’t you?
 
Are you working here tonight, too?”

“No.
 
I came to the fair to have fun.
 
I caught part of your show, and as usual, you
were great.
 
Just don’t quote me on
that,” he joked.
 
“Want a soft drink or a
cup of coffee?”

“Thanks,
but I was just leaving.
 
Maybe some other time.”

“Oh,
come on.
 
It’s not so late and I could
use some scintillating company.
 
We might
be enemies on the air, but there’s no reason why we can’t call a truce when
we’re not working, is there?”

“All right.
 
Let’s have coffee.”
 
She knew it
would be rude to refuse him when he made an effort to be polite.

She
and Mike stopped at a refreshment stand which had two small tables with chairs
around them, and then they took their steaming beverages over to one of the
tables.
 
For a few seconds they didn’t
talk while they sipped the hot coffee.
 
Suddenly an uneasy feeling crept over Lindsay when she realized they sat
next to the House of Horror.
 
Her
apprehension increased as she noticed that Mike cast frequent glances in that
direction.
 
Did he go through the spook
house and have the same unsettling experience that she did?
 
Or was something else behind his strange
behavior?
 
He didn’t seem very talkative
now for someone who sought her out only minutes ago.
 
Was he the one that whispered the unsettling
message to her?
 
From past observations
she knew that he sometimes behaved childishly on and off the air, especially
whenever his
rivals,
and she was one of them, were
concerned.